Do you intend to offer something like EverNote does, so that one can paste part of a Web page into NoteFrog and have it look reasonably like the original, in particular, with links intact?

We tried this with ClipGuru. It was problematic primarily due to the different methods each of the various browsers utilize to render the content - Firefox renders as an approximation of HTML, IE as rich text, etc.

The maintenance of the capability across the browser base was impeding our ability to improve the base functionality of the core program. It's not currently on our implementation schedule, but we will revisit it.

Note my modifier "reasonably" Neither EverNote nor AllMyNotes seem to give a perfect rendition of a page. However, would it be possible to have a plain text format that at least includes the links? I.e., stripping out HTML tags but preserving URLs?

Note my modifier "reasonably" Neither EverNote nor AllMyNotes seem to give a perfect rendition of a page. However, would it be possible to have a plain text format that at least includes the links? I.e., stripping out HTML tags but preserving URLs?

It is definitely something we will consider. As mentioned on the site, we built this tool due to an unsatisfied need and use it ourselves. A url feature like you mention would be usefull. We'll add it to the top of the features list.

Please, what's the function of the narrow column on the right of the titles window, see screenshot?

I've been wondering - not very coherently - about the titles list again. I presume that NF works like EverNote and CintaNotes in that the only "organisation" of the note stack is by date. That means that "live search" won't look quite right, because the results won't be in alphabetical order. If the main and recommended way to access data is via the search feature, would it make sense to relegate the titles list to a popup, and to make the search feature more prominent? That would be a radical departure from the existing look, of course. It would also make NF a little like a Windows form of Memory Mate for DOS (a wonderful program sold first by Brown Bag and then by Broderbund), an indexed free-form notekeeper, very fast at finding things. Many of us liked its clean simple interface, preferring it to the InfoSelect of the same era. MM loaded with a screen blank except for the main controls at the top. Apart from moderately powerful Boolean search, you could step through your note stack note by note. See screenshots... ahhh, that takes me back! And to make the screenshots, I found my copy and ran it in a console under Vista Home Premium!

That capability exists now via a rightclick menu from the items list "Save link to item" - paste the link into an item via the rightclick item "Insert saved item link"

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Please, what's the function of the narrow column on the right of the titles window, see screenshot?

Originally to display a "Notation". Unused at present.

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I've been wondering - not very coherently - about the titles list again. I presume that NF works like EverNote and CintaNotes in that the only "organisation" of the note stack is by date. That means that "live search" won't look quite right, because the results won't be in alphabetical order. If the main and recommended way to access data is via the search feature, would it make sense to relegate the titles list to a popup, and to make the search feature more prominent? That would be a radical departure from the existing look, of course. It would also make NF a little like a Windows form of Memory Mate for DOS (a wonderful program sold first by Brown Bag and then by Broderbund), an indexed free-form notekeeper, very fast at finding things. Many of us liked its clean simple interface, preferring it to the InfoSelect of the same era. MM loaded with a screen blank except for the main controls at the top. Apart from moderately powerful Boolean search, you could step through your note stack note by note. See screenshots... ahhh, that takes me back! And to make the screenshots, I found my copy and ran it in a console under Vista Home Premium!

Items may be sequenced by item number = date created, or by date updated via an "Option". Within a list, items may be grouped into one of four sub-groupings, top, high, normal and bottom.

We've found that grouping items with the most recently updated at the top along with the sub-grouping capability, provides reasonably good access for non-search conditions. A layout as you describe would be possible and was even considered since the original capability we were seeking was an InfoSelect like search/retrieval. Once a search in complete, it's possible to step through the list of matching items, one at a time in the resulting list. Elimination of the list would buy some space and possibly even a speed improvement for very large lists. It's something we haven't considered so far.

Feedback from ß testing:I installed and worked with NFß "01" as I shall refer to it.I reported back to @berry with:4 positive points8 negative issues (a couple of may have been due to my lack of knowledge of NF).

The issues have been addressed where repeatable, and a new NFß "02" has been issued, which I have downloaded and installed and am using now with NF running all the time.

So those issues that could be replicated have been fixed in NFß "02", so have now gone away.There was one obscure issue that could not be replicated, and that also seems to have gone away (or has not yet recurred, at any rate).

I also have CHS running all the time, so this involves duplication, but I'd rather be safe than sorry - I know that CHS has shown itself to be pretty much rock solid. Neither proggy seems to get in the way of the other, so far, and I am learning more about NF as I continue to use it.

We've found that grouping items with the most recently updated at the top along with the sub-grouping capability, provides reasonably good access for non-search conditions.

I think I agree, though I don't have much data in NoteFrog yet. I'd still like to see the Search Control Area made more prominent. Eventually I'd like to see more advanced Boolean searching, something of this kind:

Find:(paper OR clip OR paperclip)AND(pen OR pencil)NOT(nuggan or nugganite)

Is NoteFrog indexed? If not, how fast will search be with large databases?

A NoteFrog stack is stored in memory as an array. The search is very fast. On a very large database the limiting factor, speed wise, is displaying a very large list of "matching" items - the list display just takes a while (relatively). If you type fast, so we're not trying to display a new list on each character, but rather only a reasonably sized list of matching items, it will be very fast.

Since it's processor dependent, the speed will also vary somewhat based on processor speed.

cheers,

Incidentally, "and" searching is incorporated via ending a search term with an "enter".

I think I agree, though I don't have much data in NoteFrog yet. I'd still like to see the Search Control Area made more prominent. Eventually I'd like to see more advanced Boolean searching, something of this kind:

Find:(paper OR clip OR paperclip)AND(pen OR pencil)NOT(nuggan or nugganite)

That might become more valuable with bigger datasets.

Do you recall when I wrote in the thread above that I had suggested that the FAQ be included in the default stack (database) for NF?Well, by that time I had already copied all the FAQ into my main stack.So, in order to find a documented answer to your Q, I did this:

typed in "search" to the search field box

pressed "Enter"

typed in "notefrog" to the search field box

pressed "enter"

This was the result:

Scrolling through the FAQ item, I quickly found the answer to your Q: (see "Q: How do I do compound (AND) searches?")

Spoiler

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Q: How do I use the NoteFrog™ Super Search?Search ControlsThe Search Control Area at the top left is the NoteFrog™ heart and soul and provides the instant search result interface.

Simple SearchesType your search string into the top box.As you type, the count shown in the small box will update to show the total number of notes which match your search criteria.If you make a typing error just backspace.As you type, the Item List Window at the bottom left will be updating to include only those notes which contain your search string, and the body of the top note from that ever-decreasing list will be displayed in the Item Window at the right.If you type a search string that does not exist in any of the notes of your stack, NoteFrog™ will sound an audible beep and backspace the string to the last match that was the found on any note in the stack.Once your notes have decreased to a reasonable number, you can identify your note and select it for display in the large window, or simply cursor down the items on the left to show all that contain your search terms.TIP To see all matches for your current search string in a particular item, press the F3 Function Key to scroll to each of the matches, one at a time.

Clearing the SearchYou may clear the search and return to the entire stack of notes at any time by clicking on the "Refresh" button or by hitting the keyboard escape key [Esc].Repeating the last searchThe "Repeat Last Search" button allows fast return for activities requiring repetitive access to a matching subset of items.

Match Case: Case sensitive searchesNormally you will conduct most searches as case insensitive, largely because the speed of the NoteFrog™ search makes doing case sensitive searches unnecessary. However, case-sensitive search is an option. In case-sensitive mode, notes must contain a character string that exactly matches the upper/lower case that you type into the search string. For example, an a does not match an A, and an A does not match an a. On the other hand, in case-insensitive searches, the case of both the input and the matching string are irrelevant, only the letter itself matters.To illustrate, in the normal case-insensitive search, typing the the stringTomwould find all notes containing the stringsTom, atom,Tomato and stomp.If you specifically wanted to find notes about your friend Tom, then you could set the case sensitive box and that same search Tom would now return onlyTom and Tomato.To get even more refined you could type a space after the Tom and that would have found only notes with Tom with a space following, and thus not the note containing Tomato.

Q: How do I do compound (AND) searches?Compound SearchesCumulative "AND" compound searching is available by hitting the [Enter] key after each string of a compound search. The search for that string will be completed and the string itself will be displayed in the box directly below the search input box. Each additional "AND" of a compound search will be searched for and displayed there also, followed by an arrow symbol.

For example, to search your notes for the specific string:Tom, Dick and Harryyou would entertom, dick and harryinto the search box which would return only the notes containing that exact character-for-character string match. However to find all notes that contain all three names you would entertom[Enter]dick[Enter]harrywhich would list all notes that contain those three names anywhere in the body of the note. The strings of a compound seach may be entered in any order. The intermediate results will of course vary, but the final result will be identical.

Q: What are search "tags" and do I need them?A: A search "tag" is just any special character string that you decide to use anywhere in a note that will make that note easier to find, either as an individual note or as a member of a group of related notes all including that same tag. You can use any scheme you choose for your tags, however, we recommend that you use the same general scheme for all of your tags. For example, one good approach might be to use two right-bracket characters "]]" as the first two characters of every tag you create. That has the advantage of being a lower-case character and also easy to locate on the keyboard. But feel free to use whatever tagging scheme you choose.

The NoteFrog™ compound search is so powerful and fast that you may easily and efficiently use NoteFrog™ for thousands of notes in many different Stacks and Stack Libraries and never need to add search "tags" to any of them. Most users will probably use tags only infrequently. Even the most intense users are unlikely to ever include tags in more than a small percentage of their notes. But at the same time, they can be extremely useful for many different purposes, including the creation of N-dimensional "Tree" structures (See the "Tree Structure" FAQ).

As an example, suppose you have a friend named Tom and over time you have created many notes that have his name somewhere in the note. If you wanted to find Tom's phone number or address or email, you might choose to add a special "flag" to the note or notes that contain that information. We call that sort of flag a "tag". In this case you might just tag those "important" notes about Tom with a ]]tom string added anywhere in those important notes. Then doing a search for "]]tom" would result in only those notes containing ]]tom appearing in the match list.

You might adopt a more flexible scheme for your tags. Perhaps using something like adding a "]]PB" to any note that contains "phonebook" type information for anyone. Then you would do a compound search by first entering "]]PB" in the search box and pressing the enter key. That would eliminate from the results list all notes not containing a phonebook entry "]]PB" string. Then search within those notes for "tom" or "dick" or "harry" or any other person. Note that when doing a compound search, the order in which the various search terms are entered makes no difference to the final result. You could have entered tom then carriage return then ]]PB and the final result would be identical- a listing of only those notes containing both the strings tom and ]]PB.

A NoteFrog stack is stored in memory as an array. The search is very fast. On a very large database the limiting factor, speed wise, is displaying a very large list of "matching" items - the list display just takes a while (relatively). If you type fast, so we're not trying to display a new list on each character, but rather only a reasonably sized list of matching items, it will be very fast.

Since it's processor dependent, the speed will also vary somewhat based on processor speed.

I thought it might be useful to expand on this.A common term for this kind of search is a "live" search. That means that the search proceeds as you type each letter of the search string.It uses the actual data in the records, not a previously-built search index/table.

Generally speaking:

Slow typing in the search field in NF starts a fresh incremental search with every character that is typed in. This slows things down quite a bit and is a waste of processor resource. This can sometimes feel "laggy".

Fast typing does not allow enough/much time for NF to start a fresh incremental search and to properly proceed with that search as each character is typed in. This speeds things up a bit.

Pasting a search term into the search field is thus the fastest, since it avoids all the incremental search palaver.

You will tend to notice this effect of typing speed on the search speed when you are searching larger stacks (i.e., databases containing lots of records).

You can see the same kind of NF search behaviour in InfoSelect and CHS. Usually pretty fast.

Find:(paper OR clip OR paperclip)AND(pen OR pencil)NOT(nuggan or nugganite)

This search term could be simplified by removing redundant terms, thus:Was: (paper OR clip OR paperclip) AND (pen OR pencil) NOT (nuggan or nugganite)Change to: (paper OR clip) AND (pen) NOT (nuggan)

The modified search will filter "paperclip" and "pencil" and "nugganite" in the way you want, by default.

I don't think NF or CHS can do this in "live" search, because they are not boolean and they default to (AND). Boolean terms such as (AND), (OR), (NOT) are not usable.However, CHS can (as we know) apply a boolean filter - i.e., including boolean terms - in its Virtual Folders.InfoSelect will perform a "live" boolean search filter (if you want it to), thus:

The ability to perform such a live boolean search - i.e., in a similar manner to InfoSelect - could be potentially very useful, and therefore would be a useful new requirement for both NF and CHS. (I know you have brought this up several times in the DC forum, in the context of CHS.)

A discussion of various search capabilities along with their respective value might be interesting.

As mentioned, NoteFrog currently contains an "and" capability. Incorporating an "or" capability in an "as you type" search capability becomes slightly impractical as it requires re-searching all list items once an "or" is incorporated - thus you whittle a list down only to begin again as an "or" is incorporated. You also need to agree on how to escape terms to easily identify the boolean components - e.g. presently, pickle "or" would search for the entire term - pickle "or" -. Interpreting an entire expression and then searching would be possible, but would negate the "search as you type" capability.

Some combination of both? It becomes difficult determining what has the most value while still keeping the search capability simple and usable for your average, not power, user.

You can see a graphical representation of a search in the Search Map which displays a series of squares. Each colored square represents an item in the Selector. As you type in your search phrase, the search will narrow and you will see the colored squares gradually disappear. The remaining squares represent the items that match the search phrase. The number of matches is displayed in the Matches area above the Search Map. The size of the squares varies with the amount of information being searched.

You can retrieve previous searches by pressing the DOWN ARROW key. You can also use the drop-list button next to the Search for field and select a previous search from a list.

You can highlight a word in a Note or caption while editing and then invoke the Search command. That word will automatically be copied into the Search key box.

The More button expands the dialog box to display additional search options (click Less button to hide the advanced search options).

The Search Type drop-down box allows to select one of the search types.

You can specify a case sensitive search by checking the Case Sensitive checkbox. When unchecked, both "Apple" and "apple" will be found, regardless of how the item was originally entered.

If you want to search for whole words, check Whole Words Only.

You can specify that you want to search the information shown in the Selector by checking the Captions checkbox. You can specify that you want to search the Workspace by checking the Text checkbox.

Search Barriers prevent items from being searched. When you place a Search Barrier (marked by icon) on an item, searches will exclude that item. If you want to ignore Search Barriers and search through all items, check the Pass Barriers checkbox. Otherwise, leave the checkbox unchecked to allow Search Barriers to work as intended.

Check All Topics to search all your data. Uncheck All Topics for a localized search of just the selected Topic.

You can search for the information in the Filtered items by checking the Within Current Filter option. For example, you can search for "John Smith" and then search the found items for the word "invoice" to located invoices from John Smith.

The Search for Type and Go Into sections are explained in "08 Searching | Item Type Searching".

Incorporating an "or" capability in an "as you type" search capability becomes slightly impractical as it requires re-searching all list items once an "or" is incorporated - thus you whittle a list down only to begin again as an "or" is incorporated. You also need to agree on how to escape terms to easily identify the boolean components - e.g. presently, pickle "or" would search for the entire term - pickle "or" -. Interpreting an entire expression and then searching would be possible, but would negate the "search as you type" capability.

The example of a Boolean search I gave was exactly the kind of search you did in the aforementioned Memory Mate, a DOS program dated 1989. It gave you a "command line" to do this. AND, OR, and NOT were all reserved words. It also had a separate Narrow command to refine your search if you got too many hits. I see that full Boolean logic would be problematic in a "search as you type" interface, but if you hid the titles list as I mentioned before, and relied on the main searching feature, it would make more sense. However, that seems to imply that you have to make search terms exact rather than every term a wildcard, and if you need wildcards, deliberately specify them (as * or ?). It also depends on what sort of application you see NoteFrog becoming...

It becomes difficult determining what has the most value while still keeping the search capability simple and usable for your average, not power, user.

I was doing Boolean searching back in 1988. All users had to learn fast or perish. I find Windows dumbs things down; the average user has become defined as a complete beginner with very little brain or application.[/Rant]

This search term could be simplified by removing redundant terms, thus:Was: (paper OR clip OR paperclip) AND (pen OR pencil) NOT (nuggan or nugganite)Change to: (paper OR clip) AND (pen) NOT (nuggan)

The modified search will filter "paperclip" and "pencil" and "nugganite" in the way you want, by default.

In NF's current implementation, that's true. But... I'm implying that a later version might/should offer exact terms, not just treat every term as a wildcard.

Sorry, I didn't see that exact strings or "Whole Words Only" were necessarily implicit in your search, and so I labelled them as redundant search terms. (Normally, they could be redundant.)

That was why I provided the images of the Infoselect boolean search, where you could pick options - for example, exact strings in the form of "Whole Words Only" - and if you didn't specify that option, then the strings would be looked for by default as whole words AND if embedded in larger strings.Otherwise, I would suggest that having your search look for "whole words only" by default is likely to be a pain in the proverbial.

Had you specified that (exact or "Whole Words Only") as a default requirement in CHS? If so, then I think I must have missed that. Otherwise, I'm pretty sure I would have said something about it.Do you really want it as a default in NF? (I wouldn't - I'd want it as a defined option, as in InfoSelect. And it would be "nice to have" in CHS.)

@berry: Nothing much to report on the NFß v2 (02).Only one odd thing so far:I have NF "frog-croak" sound turned on for clip capture, and it works fine.However, NF will frequently do a frog-croak when it has not been used for a while, and is not being used - including when keyboard is active or keyboard is idle. It's not capturing anything on these instances - at least, nothing new is appearing in the stack. I wondered, but It doesn't seem to be occurring when the screensaver engages either.

I didn't see that exact strings or "Whole Words Only" were necessarily implicit in your search

Perhaps not, but I used to search Derwent World Patent Index via the Dialog host system. With tens of millions of complex records to search, precision was vital. Dialog has very advanced search features, but you usually have to specify wildcards as such. I sometimes find Google's "over-wildcarded" beahviour irritating. I often want an exact match, and would rather have no matches than a load of false drops (maybe I should check its advanced search feature again).

Thanks Ian. I will look into the "frog-croak". Since the other beta testers are not experiencing any problems either, I'll probably be firming up for a V2 release, thus the "croak" fix may not make it into V2.0 unless it's a very simple fix.

Thanks again for your input.

cheers

Edit. The sound is only played within the clip collection routine, which requires a "Clipboard notification" message sent by Windows. However, duplicate clips - that is, another copy of the previously collected clip, are not collected, so it's possible a message is being received from Windows but NoteFrog is not saving the item. Some applications send a clipboard notification when they close, so, for instance, if you had copied data from a webpage and later closed the browser, NoteFrog would receive a clipboard notification and recognize a duplicate.

I will look into moving the "sound" so it occurs after the check for a duplicate.

However, duplicate clips - that is, another copy of the previously collected clip, are not collected, so it's possible a message is being received from Windows but NoteFrog is not saving the item. Some applications send a clipboard notification when they close, so, for instance, if you had copied data from a webpage and later closed the browser, NoteFrog would receive a clipboard notification and recognize a duplicate.

Thought I should mention this, because it relates to the accumulation of duplicate text and image clips, which could lead to potentially unnecessarily bloated stacks:NF will (correctly) not copy a duplicate of the last clip to be copied, but it apparently will copy a duplicate of any other clip captured before the last one. (Is that correct?)Is there some way this duplication could be avoided/prevented in NF?

I think this same issue was addressed during the last 12 months in CHS. Now in CHS I think text clips are not duplicated, and there was also an improved CRC check of image clips to avoid making duplicate clip copies of those.

NF will (correctly) not copy a duplicate of the last clip to be copied, but it apparently will copy a duplicate of any other clip captured before the last one. (Is that correct?)Is there some way this duplication could be avoided/prevented in NF?

It would be possible. It's never been reported as an issue. Would need to give some thought as to the action taken when a duplicate was detected and skipped, such as not to confuse the user and cause additional issues.

No major issues to report with NFP ß 02.The search and scroll operations still feel nice and fast with 1,927 items in the stack.

Minor problems:

When I start NFP from the Quicklaunch icon, it shows up in the systray and closes as minimised to the systray - which is what I expect it to do. However, it doesn't seem to start with windows even though I have selected that option, and when I put it in my startup folder to force it on startup, it started OK, but did not show in the systray and disappeared on close (though the process was still active).

After entering the Registration Code, the menu item "Go Pro - Purchase NoteFrog Professional" is greyed out, but when you restart NFP, the same item has been restored to black (i.e., is not greyed out).